>>25659916
I've been thinking about our plan of attack.

I'm thinking combined assault from Jack's shade and shadow minions tying up Tragon and preventing him from interfering while ghouls screen Meredith, then we can Delusion Kanagis with both crippling types and let Jack move in for the kill while we work at dealing with Argas.

Unless the paralysis Delusion isn't necessary and Jack's grasping darkness can pin him down; then we just pop the you cant use Talents delusion on him and paralyze Argas instead.

>>25660021
Of course with our shade blinding everyone, and Jacks doing whatever it can with its shadow powers to crowd control the group.

It would also be helpful to have the Talent portfolio of each member again for reference.

>>25660021
>while we work at dealing with Argas.
What does this part mean?

>>25660047
Sorry, that was part of a paste I saved before, forgot it wasn't completely revised. Amend that whole bit with putting both crippling delusions on Kanagis UNTIL Jack can pin him down with Grasping Darkness + Shadow Steel, then we drop the paralysis delusion and slap it on Argas.

>>25660069
What's Shadow Steel?

>>25660081
It's a power that makes shadows turn corporeal with the proporties of solid steel, I'm assuming Jack has it if he's a master of Tenebriety (And by extension his Shade who retains all of said Talent).

>>25660032

Sure. Meredith is the porcelain lady who has Alchemy, Clarity, Celerity, and Majesty. Kanagis is the snake person who has Celerity, Majesty, and maybe Thaumaturgy. Tragon is the statue bruiser who has Potence and Fortitude, and Argas is the twisted metal insect person...Thing, who has Arcana, Fortitude, and Celerity.

In any case, Jack does have Shadow Steel, though he doesn't quite have every Tenebriety power.

>>25660021
Checked the archives.
Meredith: Alchemy, Clarity, Celerity, and Majesty
Kanagis: Celerity, Majesty, and maybe Thaumaturgy
Argas: Arcana, Fortitude, and Celerity (and also benefits from lots of alchemical gear donated by his team, probably Meredith)
Tragon: Potence and Fortitude

Initial thoughts: Two of those have Majesty. Jack is unlikely to be affected by it, but we are definitely still vulnerable to this. They should be disabled or killed before they can turn us against him.

>>25660250
So perhaps we should hit Kanagis with both delusions, have Jack's shade tie him down, switch paralysis to Meredith, tie her down, drop paralysis on Meredith and change it to You Cant Use Talents, then have Jack bog down the others with whatever he sees fit? I dunno.

Okay, so what is our final plan, here?

>>25660337
Consider that the time it takes to place the first delusion is enough for them to respond to our presence. If Jack can somehow prevent the other from using Majesty during that time, we should be safe. If not, that could be trouble.

>>25660595
Depends fully on whether either of them have suggestion, so it comes down to luck. I still say we should go for >>25660337

Also to clarify for TM, Jack has freedom to use his Shade in lieu of himself as well as how best to organize his minions in keeping the other Daemons occupied. He knows that stuff better than we do.

>>25660616
I just considered, would Jack's tenebriety alow him to counter Blinding Darkness. If so, the only thing we could be forced to do against him is delusions, which should have a decent chance of being resisted if he's a peer.

>>25660681
Yeah, so I think we're good.

Meredith - Elesh Norn
Argas - Sheoldred
Tragon - Karn
Kanagis - ?
.

>>25660337
Does this involve grasping darkness on all of them? I'd hate to be in the middle of that with the two warriors wielding enchanted gear unrestrained.

>>25660800

...What?

>>25660802
However many we can manage with the combination of Blinding and Grasping. It should be night-time so we can maximize the shadows before we attack.

I'm still waiting for someone to post a complete plan so that I don't have to piece something together from four different posts containing corrections and revisions, several of which are probably not from the same person.

>>25661033
Right.

Jack sends his minions in (Shadow minions, ghouls, whatever he has available)to tie up Tragon and Argas while out Shade hits them all with Blinding Darkness. Then, we slap both a Paralysis Delusion and No Talents Delusion on Kanagis until Jack or his Shade tie him down with Steel'd Grasping Darkness. Then we drop Paralysis and hit Meredith with paralysis. Jack repeats the procedure with her. Drop and change the Paralysis Delusion on her into No Talents. Then Jack can finish off Kanagis/Meredith, with Grasping Darkness helping to immobilize the other two if possible. One either of those two are dead drop a Paralysis on one of the other two at our discretion and basically just keep the process rolling.

Is Grasping Darkness applied on multiple targets simultaneously like with Blinding or is it one at a time? Is it also similar with regard to how exhausting it is? If so, what Anomaly should be doing is basically talent-locking Kanagis and then Meredith. That should leave them completely locked down except for Argas still having arcana available.

>>25661154

Grasping Darkness can apply to multiple targets simultaneously. It is, however, limited by the strength of the tendrils and their ability to stand up to being hacked to pieces. Creatures with Potence may be able to rip free, creatures with Celerity may be able to avoid them altogether, and creatures with alchemical weapons can hack others out if they aren't already immobilized (but can't hack themselves out if they've been tied down already).

>>25661238
Would it be possible for our Shade to blind them all and Jack's to Shadow Steel Grasp them all with the shadows that will be available?

>>25661238
So that's pretty much all of them. Still, >>25661147 should probably work if the ghouls are able to keep the fighters occupied.

>>25661292

Blinding Darkness requires a lot of shadow to work. The shadow in the forest is basically omnipresent because of how thick it is, but even so, Jack will only have a couple of tendrils close enough to make a difference if you're blinding four people at once.

>>25661399
If we Blinded everyone but Kanagis then since we're disabling him anyway, would that help?

>>25661435
We could also drop the Blindness on Meredith once Kanagis is tied down since it doesn't matter if she can see when she's paralyzed.

>>25661147
>>25661435
>>25661469

Well, we've wasted enough time on this. You and Jack are headed out of the city to go and confront Meredith and company, and unsurprisingly Jack's ghosts soon flit by to report in an unearthly whisper that Meredith's squad is headed straight for you as well.

The ghosts report when Meredith is near, and you approach in shadow form, flanked on both sides by a pack of Jack's shadowy minions and followed just behind by your faithful Shades.

As soon as you draw near, you blind all four of them, but Meredith's eyes glow with Clarity and she sees through the dark. Kanagis hisses, pulling a dagger from his belt. He's begun cutting into his scaly hide when you smack him with the first delusion. Spitting in frustration, he instead pulls his glaive from his back and swings it in a wide arc all around, catching a stray shadow, but then your second delusion sinks in and he is still.

"Remove the shadows from his eyes!" Meredith commands, and Jack's shadow minions immediately leap upon Tragon and begin clawing the shadows away from him. They cling to Tragon, but the minions are numerous. Worse, the shadow minions leap off of Argas to respond to the command, and he immediately vanishes into thin air.

"Teleporter," Jack says, his polearm clashing with Meredith's sword, a thin blade, but given great strength through its enchantment, "he'll be back." Jack makes for Kanagis' paralyzed body, his tendrils grasping for Meredith, but she dances away, slicing at them with her enchanted blade, and keeps Jack occupied. Tragon, now only partially blinded, is barreling directly towards you.

>wat do?

>>25662175
Hmm, would rather not release any of the delusions. Also would rather not try triple delusions just yet, too draining. We can freely unblind Meredith and Kanagis, Argas is gone, leaving just Tragon.

TM, do we know enough about this Majesty power to realize whether removing the shadows from Tragans eyes would free the minions from the domination, since their assignment is done / no longer possible, or if it would just leave them standing doing nothing?

Oh, and we need to get moving away from Tragan. He's probably faster due to Anomaly's small size, but it should be enough for a short while. Would it be possible to "blend" with our shade, then split off again to confuse him?

>>25662567

Once they've completed the task, the shadows will resume normal behavior, so if you unblind Tragon they'll go right back to attacking him. That said, there's not much preventing Meredith from commanding them to do something else.

The thing where you merge with Shade and then split up again should work, in that he probably won't be able to tell which is which, but there is a 50% chance he'll guess right regardless. Better than 100%, I guess.

>>25662634
Well then, blinding him is on our Shade's budget, and shouting those commands can't be entirely free for Meredith, so unblinding him is a good trade in my eyes. If he was immediately reblinded, would they go back to trying to unblind him or would the spell just end the moment the task was completed the first time?

>>25662634
Easy then, we reblind him using our own energy pool, and if Meredith does the same shit again we alternate reinstating the blindness using our Shade and us. Theres no way that power can weather that many uses.

>>25662795
Also, is there any way we can take Kanagis's glaive from his hands and stab him in the head?

>>25662880

In order for you to do this personally, you'd have to go corporeal, but yeah, there's no particular reason to believe you couldn't pry it from his fingers and stab him with it.

>>25662767

You're not exactly sure, but most likely if you reblind the guy Meredith would have to command the shadows to unblind him again.

>>25663068
Right, so lets reblind Tragon. Do the wonder twins "which one is the right one" strategy by ducking into our shade, come round to where Kanagis is and hopefully confuse Meredith assuming she can even get away from Jack's efforts. Then we go corporeal for a brief moment to grab Kanagis's glaive while Jack is keeping her busy and impale him with it to kill him. Then back to shadow form.

Jack's gonna need our help on this one, so I think the risk is worth it.

>>25663118
You have to unblind Tragon before you can reblind him. If the shadows don't resume unblinding him, and if Meredith does nothing else to unblind him, we won't need to do the twins trick, either. Otherwise I agree. Also brace for Argas returning with something horrible.

>>25663172
I meant to do the Twins trick anyway because Meredith might be keeping an eye on where we are and thus may use Celerity to rush over and stab us when we dance by to kill Kanagis.

>>25663201
Oh. Well I guess she might do that if she doesn't mind letting down her guard against Jack. He has Celerity to match hers, I think?

>>25663216
I'm not sure, if he does then we don't really have to worry about it. Doing the twins trick might also buy Argas time to return too if we aren't careful, so let's just omit that.

>>25663235
Actually, you know, doing that twins trick only really does anything if the person is watching you to begin with. She's not supposed to be doing that, she's fighting Jack. Simply being near our shade should leave her uncertain if Clarity doesn't tell her which is which.

>>25663118

You unblind Tragon, the shadows racing away from his eyes, and Jack's shadow minions set about attacking him again immediately. He cuts a swath through a few of them with a single mighty blow before he's reblinded again. Though still locked in combat with Jack, Meredith glances to the side long enough to shout "kill the girl!" And the shadows immediately leap off of Tragon to begin chasing you.

Jack's Shade steps in and begins fighting with the minions, while Jack steps back from his combat with Meredith briefly and taps his polearm on the ground, the shadow minions evaporating on the spot. He waves his hand towards Meredith, who stares in momentary confusion before Jack attacks her again. Meredith's eyes glow again with true sight, and she sees through Jack's glamours, repelling his attack again. "Really starting to hate you," Jack says as the two trade blows.

"Feeling's mutual," Meredith says, parrying an attack.

Jack's Shade rises off the ground and summons tendrils to pin down Tragon. Jack's Shade is poised to impale him through the throat when Argas reappears behind him. You've gotten next to Kanagis. You can wrench his glaive free and finish him off now, though doing so will take time while Argas attacks the Shade, which doesn't benefit from Jack's Celerity.

>wat do?

>>25663503
Paralyze Argas for a few seconds with a third delusion while we kill Kanagis, then we can drop the delusions on Kanagis once he's dead and maintain the new one on Argas. We can slap paralysis on Meredith too for good measure if we aren't feeling horrible.

That shouldn't stress us too horribly, I hope.

>>25663503
There's two Anomalies! Shade can blind Argas. That's not a complete guarantee that he won't still hit Jackshade, but hey, if Argas is going to do any damage he'll do it now, not the second or two from now when we'd have finished a paralysis delusion.

>>25663624
I need to remember to be more explicit. Correction: Shade blinds Argas, we kill Kanagis.

>>25663567
>>25663624

So which of these two are we going with? Tack on the usual d100 roll, highest wins, just in case there's no consensus.

>>25663674
Yeah, lets not paralyze Argas then. Just blind him with the Shade while we kill Kanagis. Then we Paralyze and No Talents on Meredith.

>>25663752
Blind Argas, kill Kanagis.

>>25663770
>>25663787

Your Shade blinds Argas, who fires arcane bolts towards Jack's Shade. The Shade dives to the side, but the bolts wing him, and he staggers away, wounded. Meanwhile, you pry the glaive from Kanagis' grip and impale him with it. You slap a paralysis delusion onto Argas in the next moment, but Tragon has ripped himself free from the clinging tendrils and begun swinging wildly in the direction of Jack's Shade.

Meredith spares a glance towards Jack's Shade and commands "kill the girl!" The next sound from her mouth is the more pleasing scream of pain as Jack hacks her arm off. Tendrils leap up from the ground to hold her in place before she can recover, and Jack drives the blunt end of his polearm through her chest, and then again through her head, shattering her into a hundred pieces.

Her last command wears off momentarily, leaving Jack's Shade dazed and confused a moment, but soon he regains his senses and leaps away from the wild attacks of the blinded Tragon. Jack himself casually decapitates the paralyzed Argas before swatting aside one of Tragon's blind blows, sending the statue off balance, and then slowly but surely pummels him to death with his blade. Tragon's Fortitude make it a long process, but his blindness against Jack's Celerity also make the outcome of the battle a foregone conclusion.

All four daemons lie destroyed around you. What fun!

>wat do?

>>25664018
"Well that was fun, wasn't it Jack? Just like old times I'd say"

Take a moment to celebrate our victory and ask Jack what he thinks of the situation now that only one hit squad is left.

>>25664018
Anomaly - Fragstealing since whothefuckknowswhen. Now where's that peer we don't want to see?

>>25664018

You there, OP?

Bump

I feel like mentioning this, even though I should just appreciate every break we get. Meredith kinda goofed, she could have just commanded us to release our delusions instead of going the long way around and trying to get Jack's minions to kill us. Would've freed up Kanagis to get shit done with thaumaturgy just like that.

Unless perhaps her power didn't work on daemons, I guess. if that's the case TM can reveal that now that she's dead, right?

>>25664360
There's usually a power that upgrades stuff to work on Daemons. She probably didn't have that.

>>25664387
That'd be a horrible shame for her. Why command a man to kill his neighbour when you could command a daemon to burn the entire city?

>>25664319

Still here. I usually wait 20 minutes or so for responses. Partially because it lets everyone have their say, mostly because I run this quest while also doing important grown-up responsibility things.

Also, I forgot to mention during the fight, but the Delusion spam was beginning to wear you out towards the end, and constantly running from shadow minions, Jack's Shade, etc. etc., wasn't helping. You feel sore, but you'll be fine in a few hours. Less than that if you stop and rest.

>>25664083

"I don't want to fight those two with just the two of us," Jack says, referring to the mysterious knight and jester daemons. "They're skilled at keeping their Talents hidden. They're probably equally good at using their Talents to full effect and we don't know what to prepare for. But..." He turns towards the wreckage of Meredith. "With these out of our way, we can get out of this forest without being caught. The other two daemons will know we're leaving and might even chase us, but they can't catch up. Just so long as Mortil doesn't show up."

>>25664360

Majesty only works on daemons if you have the Extraordinarily Persuasive upgrade power. Presumably Meredith didn't have that power (or she's just really stupid).

>>25664513
Where were those two last seen, again?

>>25664558

At last report, they had headed north out of the haunted section of the woods, not quite into Sholta territory but close (around the same area where Girdin, Mari, and what's left of Lark are hanging out). The hit squads do this from time to time, going outside the range of Jack's ghosts so that they can't follow them anymore, and then when they re-enter the area to resume patrols, it takes the ghosts a few days to find them again.

>>25664697
Oh hey, I didn't even have to point it out! I guess now's the time we spoil what's left of the good mood and let him know that the direction he believes those two to be headed in conveniently aligns with the location we left our wounded crew. Which we do want to keep. So we've got catching up to do!

>>25664793
Precisely what I was about to say. I hope they haven't been discovered or we'll probably have two dead allies.

>>25664819
>>25664793

You set out for the northern edge of the forest. Jack sends a ghost back to Whisper City to inform the ghosts reporting back there to report back to his current location instead, which slows the whole process down a bit, but eventually it gets sorted out and you get a steady stream of updates again. Jack sends his ghosts to concentrate their search on the northern half of the forest in order to find the two faster, since he no longer has to worry about tracking Meredith or Tempus.

You've been heading north for about a solid day when the ghosts get the information back to you. The more concentrated search has yielded results. They see the knight and his faithful companion wandering through the woods. The jester carries a young girl with him, who does not stir. The ghosts do not say whether she is unconscious or dead, but from her description it's clear that they've captured (or killed) Mari. You inquire as to any stone rhinoceroses they may have encountered in their patrols. They haven't seen any.

>wat do?

>>25665019
Not acceptable. Given the GHOSTS EVERYWHERE situation, I guess our only chance is to engage. What do we know about these two?

>>25665152

Not a lot. What you do know is that they've done a much better job of concealing their abilities, which means they are certainly better than the last hit squad (or Tempus', for that matter) at daemon warfare in general. You also know that the knight has Potence, and the jester has Celerity and Arcana. At least one of them has Alchemy, but Jack isn't sure which. He's also reasonably certain that one or both has Obfuscation. He's also heard from spying on the other squads that both of them are common daemons.

>>25665319
We've rested back up to full strength along the way right?

>>25665319
Damn. That's a lot of unknowns if they're both common, and we certainly don't have time to try to gather intel. It's a good thing at least that we got bumped up to common so we can use our delusions. Sadly we can only guess which one to target with what based on so little info. My initial guess would be to lock down the Jester entirely with Jack trying to hold off the knight, but that's just vague intuition that could be completely off the mark.

>>25665462

Yes, you feel fine.

>>25665552

This the plan you want to try and roll with? Jack's not especially thrilled with the idea of attacking these guys at all, but this whole thing is your fight, so he's going to follow your lead.

>>25665569
Yeah, anon in your opinion should we drop both crippling delusion types on the Jester and try to kill him while Jack ties up the knight? Good news is since there's two targets it should be relatively easy to blind both and shadow steel grasp the knight provided he cant dodge.

>>25665569
Well, the trouble is, they have Mari. If we try to fight them, they can just kill her if they haven't already. But we can't let them have her, so we have to do something, and the whole ghost business makes it impossible to try to stalk them or to sneak up on them and steal her back or anything else. Best thing we can do really is to simply show up in force.

>>25665648
Maybe. Or maybe we should delusion the knights ass off instead. Or anti-talent them both. It's impossible to say, we don't know their abilities yet. That potence might make it difficult for Jack to face him head on, so maybe he should be locked down instead. I just don't know.

>>25665717
Or perhaps we should be devising a delusion that will help prevent them from killing her? Fuck man, it's getting too late and I'm getting too tired to figure this out.

>>25665772
I don't think they will necessarily know we are there for her, instead just jumping them while they are distracted.

>>25665896
I would think they know that. We've learned that both squads were well aware of our approach to Whisper yet left us to enter freely. Why? Because they felt it would be fair to let Jack get some outside help in the form of another daemon, or because they wanted us trapped in Whisper while they picked up what was (according to our best theories) valuable enough to send an army at Dorrik? If so, our best hope is that they actually want her for some purpose (such as weaponizing "cursed children") and were given orders to capture her alive.

>>25666023
Well, if Jack had some way of turning Mari into a shadow too that would be wonderful for her survivability. I don't think Hidden Party will work on her since they've already seen her.

>>25666158
That would be amazing if it did, but it doesn't.
>literally carrying her right this moment
>wait where the fuck did that kid go

You could ask Jack's opinion on all this, of course, but then you'd have to decide how much to tell him about Mari.

>>25666270
>Fucking ninjas, not even Daemons are safe.

But yeah, I think we may have to pull this one out of thin air. Ask Jack what powers he has that might be able to save the girl from their ability to harm her if she isn't dead.

>>25666307
If he asks, I'm not particularly opposed to letting him in on the secret, though something along the lines of "she could be anywhere between valuable and completely game-changing, if we get her safely out of this I'll explain what I do know". What is important, if she survives this, is getting him to actually not terrorize or murder her, or really just do things that will absolutely ruin the not-horrible image we've earned with her.

>>25666430
This. I'd really like to get some more intel on Jack's input. Plus he's a good friend, I hope he can put that before his curiosity/distrust.

>>25666524
I actually meant for that line to be a tease rather than distrusting, hoping Jack would see it the same way.

>>25666430

"Oh, Anomaly, you tease," Jack says with his usual smile. "If she really could be a gamechanger, I have a trick up my sleeve, that no one else knows about. I told you how that is once, didn't I?"

"I'm less than a year out of an oubliette, Jack," you say, "I can't even remember the name of the religion we played with."

"Of course," Jack says, "it's always wise, when you're strong enough to have powers to spare, to keep one in reserve. Save it. If you don't use it, don't speak of it, no one can know what it is." Now that you think of it, you do remember him telling you that on some warm summer night in the ashes of a plundered village. You also recall him saying you'd know that already if you'd "join a proper Court instead of the Court of Miscellaneous Daemons." "There's a lot more ahead of us, though," Jack says, "Mortil. Razag and the Red Queen. That triumvirate back home. I can think of other things. We can blind them, if they don't have Clarity. Or we could hide just before we encounter them, and I could Glamour up a distraction. Mortil's ghosts won't report fast enough if we time it right. Unless, again, they have Clarity. My shadow minions," he glances around, "right, them." He taps his polearm on the ground and a new batch of minions peels themselves out of the shadows, circling around you. "I'll need an hour or two to recover from that. But they can only go so far in that time. Regardless, my shadow minions should be able to keep one of them busy at least for a little while and then we can concentrate on killing the other. Hmmm...If we had more time I could lure them into a Pestilence trap, but those diseases take months to fester properly. I've got an army of ghouls ready to go, but armies move slow. They'll just avoid it."

>wat do?

>>25667163
"Glamouring up a distraction could get them to reveal powers we wouldn't necessarily know about otherwise. Taking out the jester first would probably be prudent. I can use both of my disabling delusions on him if your minions and Shade can tie up the knight. The only thing we'll have to worry about is Obfuscation from the knight or some other trick".

>>25667504

"A certain victory was never going to be an option with these two," Jack says, "Glamour it is."

It takes a few more hours for the two of you to catch up with the pair. Both of you Obfuscate yourselves as you draw near, and Jack begins Glamouring the two as they approach, the knight mounted on a horse and the jester on foot (and yet the jester is the one who has to carry the hundred-odd pounds of Mari around; truly the proletariat are oppressed). The jester is singing some ditty when the both of them turn around to confront whatever mirage Jack has just created. The two are still distracted when you place your first delusion down on the jester, paralyzing him, and then the knight turns around and charges directly towards you. Shadows leap off the ground to attack him, but he swings an enchanted sword about his head and cleaves through those in his way, hardly even slowing down. Jack's Shade cuts the horse's legs out from underneath it and the knight goes tumbling while you slap the second delusion down on the jester. Looks like he doesn't have anything that will particularly allow him out of that. Jack emerges to attack the knight, and his blade tears through the knight's armor, but nevertheless he shrugs them off. He must have Fortitude, and though he doesn't have Celerity, his blade is strong and his aim true. Worse, efforts at blinding him fail when his eyes glow with Clarity. After a few moments of battle, the knight cuts down first Jack's Shade and then lands a grievous blow on Jack himself, cracking his ribs. Jack slinks backward, terribly injured.

On the bright side, there's nothing stopping Jack's shadow minions from prying Mari from the jester's hands and then stabbing him to death. You turn your delusions to the knight, but they slide off with no effect. He must have some method of resisting them, some special enchantment perhaps, or a power that resists delusions (maybe some obscure Clarity power?).

>wat do?

>>25668491
Shit, that's our only trick worth mentioning. This is going to be risky. Does the jester have an enchanted weapon on him? If so study the knight from behind for a moment and see if there's any areas we can maim him with minimal effort. Sneak up on him after stealing the weapon and while Jack is distracting him stab or slash. We need to contribute somehow or this fight is just gonna wear us both down.

we took that one daemon's weapon and stabbed it with it. do we still have it?

>>25669640

The jester has an enchanted sickle, so you run over and grab that. Sneaking up on the knight, you slash at ankle with the weapon, hoping to cripple his footwork and place him perpetually off-balance. You're able to cut through the armor, but his Fortitude halts your blow. He lets out a grunt of pain and kicks you with a plated boot, smashing your face and sending you sprawling.

Jack is keeping his sword occupied, but since taking his wound he is fighting a losing battle. "Throw me the sickle!" he shouts. You toss it towards him. The knight swats it out of the air with his sword, dashes Jack's polearm out of the way and is whirling his sword straight toward Jack's throat when his head explodes.

"Who the Hell are you?" Mari asks of Jack, rising to her feet, eyes wide with adrenaline. "And where's Girdin and Lark?"

>wat do?

>>25669888
"Mari stop hes an old friend! Jack make sure the knight is dead, I'll explain in a moment. Mari are you alright? What happened?"

She saved our bacon, sheesh.

>>25670017

"I dunno," Mari says, "I fell asleep and when I woke up, I was...Here. And you were trying to kill someone. And I helped. What's going on?"

"The jester probably Glamoured her asleep," Jack says, "when you killed him, the spell broke."

>wat do?

>>25670337
"Mari, this is Thin Jack. He's an old friend of mine from a few millenia back. Jack, this is Mari. She's a mortal that can naturally use Talents...and keeps surprising me at every turn like this. You're my bestie so I'll give you the unabridged version."

Then we tell Jack more or less everything, including the saving her life with a Quickening part. I think we can trust him with the info and he'll appreciate the confidence. Then afterwards fill Mari in on what she missed.

>>25670534

"Talk on the way," Jack says, picking up the sickle and the knight's enchanted sword and tossing them to Mari, "carry these. We're in bad shape. If Mortil is coming, we need to be as close to support as possible when he gets here." Using his polearm for support, Jack begins heading in the direction of Whisper City, wincing in pain as he staggers along, but refusing to slow down in spite of his shattered ribcage.

>cont.

And that is actually Chapter 3 complete.

[X] You broke the siege on Whisper City
[ ] You secured the Margellian coastline
[X] You have the cooperation of at least one Margellian king

I'm certain someone's going to ask about the coastline thing. It's a sidequest that you can get at Arn, Vin, or Sholta, but your interactions with Arn went poorly, Spectis sabotaged Sholta, and you never really talked to anyone in Vin at all. Oh, well.

In any case, it's way later than normal so we won't actually select powers now, but I'll roll them up and run an abridged thread tomorrow before D&D starts so we can select powers, and then I'll take the usual week off. Also these chapters have been steadily growing in number of sessions. What happened to the days when we would actually solve more than one encounter within the space of six hours?

Select any two:

OBFUSCATION

Those Who Have Eyes To See: You can selectively allow others to see through your Obfuscation powers.

In Plain Sight: You can use Obfuscation powers even when in plain sight of others.

Hidden: So long as you remain still, you can remain perfectly hidden behind any object large enough to conceal you from any angle, no matter how thoroughly people search for you.

DEMENTATION

Depression: Crush someone's morale, driving the very will to live out of them.

Confusion: Cause someone to see friends as enemies and enemies as friends.

TENEBRIETY

Grasping Darkness: You can command shadows to reach out to others and hold them in place.

Shadow Minions: You can make shadows rise up off the ground and do your bidding.

CELERITY

Too Fast By Half: You are about half again as fast as normal, giving you a decisive edge on mortals.

MAJESTY

Dominate: With an hour or so of sustained eye contact and verbal conditioning, you can hollow out someone's mind and make them into a mindless puppet.

CLARITY

Sense: You can feel out the location of nearby souls regardless of what may be in the way.

>>25671715

So, I'm pretty sure I have exactly one guy still reading but quest will be back briefly tomorrow at 1400 for purposes of power selection, and then it will be back again Friday, July 5th, when we begin Chapter 4.

>see you then